Synaptica Proquest Talk Taxonomy Boot Camp 2009

Taxonomies: Tools or People? TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide When would one favor human indexing over machine indexing? An example of the human indexing effort is presented along with tools that can help with the process. An example of autocategorization is illustrated with a discussion of the reciprocal flow of information between the taxonomy management tool and the autocategorization tool. Speakers then discuss how structured vocabularies help refine categorizers and how feedback from the categorizer tool to the human editorial team contributes to the continual improvement of the vocabularies. by Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy

Dave Clarke
CEO
Synaptica, LLC
[email_address]
TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide HUMAN VS. MACHINE & THE HUMAN OPTION

Human or machine indexing – depends on the data and the user subtle & abstract concepts non-textual, e.g. images, sounds highly structured very high volume homogeneous topics mission-critical precision & recall noisy or incomplete results tolerable very quick turnaround TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide Humans Machines Size Time-sensitivity Generalist users Machine-readability Conceptual-abstraction Expert users Data-structure Homogeneity

Human indexing – the process TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide Data Set 1. Review the content 2. Consult the vocabularies 3. Either tag the content item or build an index table Controlled Vocabularies Index Table

Human indexing – a wish list of time-saving tools
Minimize switching between screens - integrate vocabulary search / browse with content interface
Filter specific metadata elements to restrict lookup to relevant vocabularies or subsets of vocabularies
Search-as-you-type access to controlled vocabularies
Tree-browse as an alternative to search
Redirect queries at any time by exploring semantic relationships
Inline definitional and indexer notes
TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide

Human indexing – a wish list of time-saving tools
Self-correcting substitution of variants with their preferred terms
Optional pre-population of possible target terms based on text matches
In-line submission of candidate terms where no appropriate term identified
Optional automatic expansion of tag-set to include variants, parents, children, associations, language equivalents and crosswalk schema equivalents
Profile templates to save user- and content-based indexing preferences
TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide

Human indexing – Synaptica’s “IMS” Toolbox TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide
Minimize switching between screens - integrate vocabulary search / browse with content interface
Filter specific metadata elements to restrict lookup to relevant vocabularies
Search-as-you-type access to controlled vocabularies
Tree-browse and drop-down pick-list alternatives to search
Redirect queries at any time by exploring semantic relationships
Inline definitional and indexer notes
Self-correcting substitution of variants with their preferred terms
Optional pre-population of possible target terms based on text matches
In-line submission of candidate terms where no appropriate term identified
Optional automatic expansion of tag-set to include variants, parents, children, associations, language equivalents and crosswalk schema equivalents
Profile templates to save user- and content-based indexing preferences

Human indexing – examples TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide
A national library could use IMS to human index digital images and multimedia assets against a set of authority files.
A professional services corporation could use IMS to human index mission-critical legal documents against a taxonomy of compliance terminology.
A multinational electronics company could use IMS to human index product data according to product lines and families, hardware assets and other product based keyword groups.

Human indexing – conclusions TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Synaptica, LLC, 2009 www.synapticasoftware.com 12/09/09 Slide
Like everything else in life, if we can possibly pass the task on to machines, we’d like to
There are some situations where machines are the only solution and there are others where human indexing is required (non-machine-readable data sets, subtle/abstract concepts, mission-critical precision-recall requirements, etc.)
If human indexing is required there are tools that can help speed up the process and help attain indexing consistency
The Synaptica “wish list” represents those time-saving tools requested by our user base over the past ten years

Paula McCoy
Manager, Taxonomy Development
ProQuest
[email_address]
TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Proquest, Inc., 2009 www.proquest.com 12/09/09 Slide AUTOCATEGORIZATION A CASE STUDY USING SYNAPTICA

TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Proquest, Inc., 2009 www.proquest.com 12/09/09 Slide
Information aggregator & database producer, with content ranging from newspapers to academic/scholarly publications, in topics spanning business and management, STM (scientific, technical, medical), humanities, social science, general reference
Abstracts/indexes more than 6,000 periodicals and newspapers
Daily ingest of more than 60,000 new newspaper and newswire articles
Customer base: Public and academic libraries
End users: Academic and student researchers

The Mandate:
To promote discovery of all content relevant to the user’s search query
The Solution:
Index and abstract as much content as possible in order to maximize the number of “entry points” to an article.
Indexing provided for different parts of an article:
SUBJECTS
COMPANIES
PEOPLE
LOCATIONS
Abstracts provided for all articles of minimum length
TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Proquest, Inc., 2009 www.proquest.com 12/09/09 Slide ProQuest Search Interface

A Growing Challenge:
How to A&I hundred of thousands of new articles every day?
The Only Answer:
Autocategorization, or auto-indexing:
Machine-based application of index terms to a document or other object
TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Proquest, Inc., 2009 www.proquest.com 12/09/09 Slide ProQuest Search Interface

The Autocategorization Solution
Basic Tenets of Autocategorization:
Must have a controlled vocabulary in place
Must have other controlled lists if you want to index companies, people, locations, etc.
Must have a way to manage your vocabularies
Must have a way to manage the results of the autocat—no automated indexing method is perfect
Autocat success rests upon the existence of a strong controlled vocabulary with a history of usage from which the automation software can learn.

Implement Synaptica thesaurus management solution to manage 11,300+-term subject thesaurus and authority files for companies, people, and locations
Purchase Nstein Technologies’ T ext M ining E ngine solution to automate abstracting and indexing of subject and other terms
Train the TME to understand the usage of ProQuest thesaurus terms (3-month collaborative process)
Implement Nstein’s Knowledge Base Manager (TME Manager) to manage subject terms rules base
Synaptica Taxonomy Manager Nstein
TBC; Taxonomies: Tools or People? By Dave Clarke & Paula McCoy Copyright © Proquest, Inc., 2009 www.proquest.com 12/09/09 Slide The ProQuest Approach

Thesaurus and Autocat Management
Synaptica Thesaurus Management:
New terms added, hierarchies revised, Scope Notes added/revised
Use For (non-preferred) terms added frequently to reflect variant usages in the indexed literature and provide additional cross-references
Nstein Autocat Management:
Nstein TME Manager tool used to manage indexing rules base for all thesaurus terms
Autocat rules supplement and complement the underlying concept training
Autocat rules can be added, deleted, revised
Autocat rules enable autocat indexing to keep up with changes in term usages so that new variants can be added and rules created based on current topics in the literature or in the news

Synaptica-TME Interaction
Thesaurus management informs 2 levels of indexing: manual and automated
The thesaurus as represented in Synaptica must display all cross-references (mainly Use refs) required by manual indexers
The thesaurus as represented in Nstein must contain rules reflecting those Use references
Term updates made in Synaptica are duplicated in Nstein via indexing rules
Use references in Synaptica point human indexers to the right term
Use references in Nstein rules base point the automated indexer to the right term

Synaptica & Autocat: Benefits
A semantic-based autocat solution indexes as well as it’s been trained  that training is most successful if based on years of manual indexing using a controlled subject vocabulary  combined with a rules base, autocat can produce intelligent and informed indexing
Reviewing the results of good autocat leads to comparison with ongoing manual indexing  questions about term usages rise to the surface  human indexing can improve by becoming more flexible and adaptable to changes in terminology  revised term usages are reflected in Synaptica
Human indexers raise issues of new term variants and need for new terms  Synaptica is updated  the rules base is updated to allow autocat to capture terms better

Benefits for Synaptica Thesaurus Control
Day-to-day review of automated indexing highlights correct and incorrect term usages, leading to greater discipline in Synaptica thesaurus management to ensure human indexers remain aware of terms and their proper usage.
The need for precision in subject terms means terms must be exact and descriptive—automated indexing will not work with vague, ambiguous terms or one-word terms with multiple meanings, like “Apologies,” “Affect,” “Articulation.” The result is a more robust and controlled subject vocabulary.
Automated indexing will use terms in the thesaurus that human indexers may have forgotten about—leading again to revised hierarchies in Synaptica, new Scope Notes, and instant feedback to indexers.

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Synaptica Proquest Talk Taxonomy Boot Camp 2009

by Synaptica, LLC on Dec 09, 2009

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Synaptica Proquest Talk Taxonomy Boot Camp 2009 — Presentation Transcript